Editorial: How about just a plain good NYRA?

Published 10:34 pm, Saturday, May 18, 2013

The operators of the state horse racing franchise are demanding money.

THE STAKES:

Shouldn't what they're owed and what they owe be a two-way proposition?

Here we go again, New York. The outfit entrusted to save horse racing from extinction is acting like the one that preceded it, even as it disavows the discredited practices of the past.

In these tiresome games, NYRA wants to parse even its name. Those who now hold the state's racing franchise are eager to operate under the mantle of "the new NYRA," while blaming financial mismanagement and malfeasance on "the old NYRA." So, it's the new NYRA when it has its hand out for money from the state, but it's the old NYRA when it's supposed to pay up.

Here's the latest new NYRA claiming that it overpaid $1.2 million it owed to a state authority trying to encourage the breeding of thoroughbred horses — and demanding repayment of money that has apparently already been spent. As for the $9 million loan from the state to get NYRA out of bankruptcy, well, that was for the old NYRA. That one had other creditors in line, first among them the Internal Revenue Service.

What a mess. Does it really matter which particular NYRA management has its hand out and which one failed to make good on its prior obligations?

The bottom line is this: An organization that for years failed to pay the state a dime, that was forever being propped up by taxpayers and that was in the headlines too often for its corrupt behavior should be looking for every opportunity to make amends. Its first impulse on finding some extra cash should not be to figure out how to hold onto it, but to ask where to mail the check.

This is more than a match race between the new NYRA and the old NYRA. It's NYRA vs. no NYRA.